Cannabis

Dioscorides 3.165 Kannabis Emeros. Cannabis [some call it Cannabium, some Schoenostrophon, some Asterion, ye Romans Cannabis] is a plant of much use in this life for ye twistings of very strong ropes, it bears leaves like to the Ash, of a bad scent, long stalks, empty, a round seed, which being eaten of much doth quench geniture, but being juiced when it is green is good for the pains of the ears.

Pantagruellion

Cotgrave, Randle (–1634?), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongue. London: Adam Islip, 1611. PBM

gibbet

A gibbet, gallow-tree, paire of gallowes; (In France all Gentlemen that have Haute Justice, have also (or may have) gibbets (for the executing of malefactors) within their territories, though (ordinarily) with some differences in making, or fashion, according to their differences in estate, or dignity; for the gibbet of the (simple) high Justicier hath but two pillers; the Lord Chattelaines, three; the Barons, foure; the Earls, six; and the Dukes, eight; And yet these differences are more precise than generall; for all customes agree not in them.)

Cotgrave, Randle (–1634?), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongue. London: Adam Islip, 1611. PBM

In praise of hemp-seed

Taylor, John, The Praise of Hemp-Seed. With the Voyage of Mr. Roger Bird and the Writer hereof, in a Boat of browne-Paper, from London to Quinborough in Kent.. 1630. Folio Part III, page 60. Renascence Editions

Pantagruelion

Hemp: In as much as it is of that Plant the Cord is made of which is used for the strangling those who are so unhappy to be Gibbeted. As the punishment of the Har (a Withy of freen Sticks; the Band of a Faggot; See Cotgrave, who says, Malefactors in old time were, and at this Day in some barbarous Countries are, hang’d with Withies). As, I say, the Punishment of the Har is much anchienter in France than the Reign of Francis 1st. Rabelais must have given Hemp the name of Pantagruelion in regard it was in that Prince’s time this Punishment began to be exercis’d on the Lutherans or French Protestants, who were hoisted up to the top of a Gibbet with a Pully, and there left to hang till they were burnt or smother’d with the Fire that was kindled under them. Rabelais, who durst not speak out his Thoughts of such a piece of Inhumanity, says, that Pantagruel held these poor People by the Throat, and that in this Condition they woefully lamented the insupportable manner in which they were put to Death.

Rabelais, François (ca. 1483–1553), The Works of Francis Rabelais, M.D. The Third Book. Now carefully revised, and compared throughout with the late new edition of M. Le du Chat. John Ozell (d. 1743), editor. London: J. Brindley, 1737. p. 336.

Screech notes, “Here begins the Enigma of Pantagruelion, enigmatic encomium of hemp and of linen, treated as a single plant. The confusion of these plants is not due to Rabelais himself, but to Pliny, principal source of the erudition of these chapters. The commentators defend Pliny on this point.”

Thus Etienne de l’Aisgue, in his Commentaria in omnes Plinii libros, calls “trop tete” (pig headed, cervicosior) those who would reproach Pliny for this confusion. He adds,

Gerard 2.78. Of Garden flaxe. Pliny saith that it is to be sowne in gravelly places, especcially in furrowes: and that it burneth the ground, and maketh it worser: which thing also Virgil testifieth in his Gerogickes. In English thus: Flaxe and Otes sowne consume The moisture of a fertile field: The same worketh Poppy, whose Juyce a deadly sleepe doth yeeld. Flaxe is sowne in the spring, it floureth in June and July. After it is cut down (as Pliny lib 19. cap 1 saith) the stalks are put into the water, subject to the heat of the Sun, & some weight laid on them to be steeped therein; the loosenes of the rinde is a signe when it is well steeped: then it is taken up and dried in the Sun, and after used as most hiswives can tell better than my selfe.

1 An annual herbaceous plant, Cannabis sativa, N.O. Urticace, a native of Western and Central Asia, cultivated for its valuable fibre. It is a dioecious plant, of which the female is more vigorous and long-lived than the male, whence the sexes were popularly mistaken, and the female called carl or winter h., the male fimble (i.e. female), barren, or summer h.: see carl hemp and fimble.

(The quotations from the Saxon Leechdoms appear to refer to some wild British plant, perh. the wild hemp of 5.)

1523, etc. [see carl hemp].
1577, etc. [see fimble].
1597 Gerarde Herbal ii. ccxxxviii. (1633) 709 The male is called Charle Hempe and Winter Hempe. The female Barren Hempe, and Sommer Hempe.
1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., The male Hemp, or summer Hemp, which bears no seeds, and is called by the farmers Fimble-hemp, will have its stalks turn white in July.
1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., s.v., The remaining plants, which are the female Hemp, called by the farmer Karle-hemp, are to be left till Michaelmas

.

2 The cortical fibre of this plant, used for making cordage, and woven into stout fabrics.

3 In allusion to a rope for hanging.¢”stretchhemp, a person worthy of the gallows. ¢”to wag hemp, to be hanged.

1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 715/1 To mocke the sacrament the blessed body of god, and ful like a stretch hempe, call it but cake bred.
1532 More Confut. Tindale, Wks. 715/1 Tindall..feareth not (like one yt would at length wagge hempe in the winde) to mocke at all such miracles.
1599 Shaks. Hen. V, iii. vi. 45 Let not Hempe his Wind-pipe suffocate.
1654 Whitlock Zootomia 60 Of no small use to purge a Common-wealth, without the expence of Hemp.
1849 James Woodman xxviii, If his people catch me, I shall taste hemp.
1864 Lowell Fireside Trav. 56 [He] express[ed] a desire for instant hemp rather than listen to any more ghostly consolations.

4 A narcotic drug obtained from the resinous exudation of the Indian hemp; bhang; hashish.

1870 Yeats Nat. Hist. Comm. 195 Hemp is employed in other forms besides churrus as a narcotic.
1893 Nation (N.Y.) 9 Feb. 108/1 Its votaries have taken to opium and hemp, the latter of which Sir Lepel Griffin says is far more injurious than tobacco.

Pantagruelion

The French physician of the sixteenth century, Rabelais, tells the story of a wonder herb, Pantagruelion which was discovered and prepared by the Pantagruel. Pantegreulin [sic] requires sophisticated and extensive methods of distillation and preparation. It is then used for poisoning criminals and enemies, for suicide and, of course, for wonderful medical feats as well. The juice of Pantagruelion, “kills all manner of vermin” in the ears. It also “serves to soften the nerves, distend the joints, alleviates the contractions of gout and rheumatism”. Rabelais’ praise does not stop here. Panagruelion is nothing short of omnipotent panacea or axis mundi. “Without Pantagruelion, your kitchen would be werteched… How without Panagruelion could we ring the church bells…” Panagruelion is also toxic. “One and all were indignant that, without being otherwise sick, they suddenly found panagruelion obstructing, more villainously than angina… Alas, this was not Pantagruel, who was never a hangman…”. How is it possible that the discoverer of such a beneficial drug is suspected of being a hangman? One reason is that “thanks to Panagruel’s discovery of this use of panagruelion, many a bandit finished his life high and short”. In early modern Europe, Executioners often provided medical advice to the common folk who trusted the executioners’ know how in matters of life, death and human anatomy. Let’s remember that physicians supervise executions to this very day.

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Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492) issued in 1484 a papal bull called “Summis desiderantes” which demanded severe punishments for magic and witchcraft, which at the time usually meant the use of medicinal and hallucinogenic herbs. Indeed, the papal bull specifically condemned the use of cannabis in worship instead of wine.
The principles Pope Innocent VIII outlined became the basis for the terrifying and torturous witch-hunters’ handbook, the Malleus Maleficarum (1487).
Further, Pope Innocent VIII was a major supporter of the vicious Inquisition, and in 1487 he appointed the infamous and sadistic Spanish friar Torquemada as Grand Inquisitor. Under Torquemada’s authority, thousands of traditional female healers, users of forbidden plants, Jews, and other “heretics” were viciously tortured and killed during the “witch-hunts” of the Spanish Inquisition. This reign of terror gripped Europe well into the 17th Century.
Catholic Inquisitors tortured and killed many more in Central and South America, where peyote, ololiuqui and other sacred plants of the Aztec culture were prohibited as “works of the devil.” Ironically, while the Church was slaughtering cannabis users in Europe, the Spanish conquistadors were busy planting hemp around the New World for use as clothing, rope and sails.